This invention relates in general to room air conditioner, and is more specifically directed to a grille structure for the indoor portion of a window air conditioner unit.
Window type air conditioners typically have an indoor portion and an outdoor portion, the indoor portion being responsible for cooling and dehumidifying the indoor room air and the outdoor portion being responsible for exhausting heat into the outdoor environment. The indoor and outdoor portions each have a heat exchanger coil and a fan, and each has a return air opening and a discharge opening. A grille structure is normally installed at least over the indoor portion, and often grille structures are disposed over both the indoor and outdoor portions. To accommodate easy access to the internal parts of the unit (for cleaning or maintenance) the indoor section grille is made to be removable. Screws, clips or similar fasteners are used to attach the grille to the housing for the indoor portion. However, this construction, which requires separate fastener parts, makes construction of the unit somewhat difficult and requires undesirable process steps and parts inventory.
Additional parts also add cost and time to repair or maintenance procedures, and necessitate additional supply and inventory accounting.
An improved air conditioner window unit is described in Bolton et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,500. There, a one-piece plastic molded grille is shown and described with recesses on the grille that engage flanges on the main air conditioner housing to permit the grille to be installed without separate fasteners.
Another window air conditioners unit is described in U.S Pat. No. 5,125,239 with a one-piece grille for its indoor portion. In that case, the grille is held in place with screws.
In either case, the total number of parts is high, as the discharge deck and the evaporator fan orifice plates requires separate fasteners. Also, the grilles on these units do not provide a tight fit without separate fasteners, and are not easily installed or removed except by trained personnel.